No reasonable person would ever be confused by these logos. That said, the courts don't use any sort of reasonable or objective criteria. Unless one is a blatant ripoff, or they're absolutely undeniably different (like #9 vs a lighthouse that in no way suggests '1'), it depends on a bunch of arcane, impenetrable rules, the quality of lawyers each side, and the whims of the judge. But it all could have been avoided if they just changed the 6 logo slightly.

As cynical as I am about lawyers and the courts, the most ridiculous part of that whole back and forth was that it would be too expensive to redesign the logo. But that was said by a lawyer, so it's not completely out of character.

Loreweaver:My proposed solution to the whole problem:[ancientscrossroads.com image 720x720]/ Spent all of 30 minutes to create.

You should send that to West Sixth. It looks great.

On another note:I signed the petition but I'm not happy about the whole "They wouldn't even talk to us" story West 6th put out vs the the fact that there had been back and forth communication the whole time. The way that story was presented by West 6th was disingenuous at best and really unnecessary. I feel like I was misled on that particular topic. Maybe W6th did try to call MH and got no response but MH isn't in charge of MH, the corporate owners are and they are the ones making decisions. W6th shoulda known this. Either way, W6th was in contact with MH and that isn't what they told us.

I don't think MH has much to complain about and the terms of their lawsuit are bullying. (They want all the profits. That's more than just a little overboard)MH is way overreaching in their demands via the letters and overall acting like a bully.

GIVEN all that, I think 6th should change their logo.

Change is organic and natural. It always happens and all brand logos change over time. They should consider this market research for their logo design. They could get customers to submit designs.. make a big PR spectacle out of it. Hell the design presented up the page is awesome (Though the detail in the compass might be hard to replicate at the scale required on beer cans and coasters).

At a minimum they should change the font of the 6. I'd like it to look a little bolder and more machine made (less hand written).They may also want to change the style of the compass symbol. Maybe just encircle it too.

Theaetetus:kobrakai: Aaaaand now Magic Hat realizes that they've stepped in it big time. From their Facebook page:

We'd like to thank our fans out there who have offered their support over the last day or so. It is great to see that because of your support West Sixth is now willing to revisit the areas they previously agreed to in an effort to find a resolution. We will be reaching out to them to discuss directly rather than engage in any more back-and-forth on social sites. Thanks again for your support.

Are you reading the same post as we are?

You're not very good at subtleties are you? That's PR speak for "We're getting the holy hell beaten out of us in the court of public opinion so we're going to make sure this all goes away."

Theaetetus:As previously mentioned, the design was most certainly trademarked. It was not registered under the Lanham Act, but trademark rights can arise automatically. See section 43 of the Lanham Act, discussing rights in unregistered marks and trade dress.

You missed the comment where I discussed section 43 of the Lanham act. Here it is:

lennavan:Well, first, it seems according to the letters linked previously in the thread, they are claiming this infringes their trademark. A case for unregistered marks is very different. According to the PDF I found http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/law/tmlaw.pdf that would require proving the design is "famous" which means amongst other things "widely recognized by the general consuming public of the United States." I can't imagine that fits here.

First off I'm from the Kentuckiana area. I don't support those douchenozzles and you shouldn't either. They had a bog standard legal dispute, and they had a good offer which they reneged on. Now they have bombarded everyone in the area's facebook with their petition spam which contained blatant lies.

It's amazing how many retards are knee-jerk supporting them just because they're the smaller party to the dispute. Again, they monster-spammed everyone in the area with big-azzed whopper lies. I say let'em go under. Their beer isn't anything special anyway.